Tuesday, 16 September 2008 by Bob Smith Climbers are being warned to check a vital piece of equipment after camming device broke during a fall.

The British Mountaineering Council examined the piece of gear after a climber fell 16m (52ft) after coming off a route at Bosigran in Cornwall. The climber was, according to the BMC, very lucky not to be badly injured in the incident.

The metal cams stayed in the crack where the climber had placed them, but the rest of the device was found on the ground.

The inspection revealed that the wires connecting the camming device – a Rock Empire number 1 – to the sling had snapped and the conclusion was that failure was caused by metal fatigue caused by flexing. The technical report, by Daniel Middleton, said that the design of the device made it difficult for users to check for signs of potential problems.

A spokesman for the BMC said: “Flexible camming devices have helped revolutionise modern climbing.

“It isn't very common, but the flexible wire stems can become damaged by repeated use. Checking for damage isn't always easy with some modern designs, but is worth the effort because damaged wire stems can fail when loaded in a fall.

“Check for broken wires or signs of corrosion every now and again. If you do spot anything, retire the unit or contact the manufacturer for advice.”

The manufacturers, Rock Empire, were sent a copy of the report but didn’t respond, so the BMC decided to publish its findings.

The report states: “Failure of the wire cable in other units of the same manufacture could lead to serious injury or worse to the user. With the design employed, it appears that this may occur in other units, which on inspection by the user appear to have plenty of life left in them.”

The full report can be downloaded from the BMC website. You can see the cams at the Rock Empire site.

“Check for broken wires or signs of corrosion every now and again. If you do spot anything, retire the unit or contact the manufacturer for advice.”

aaargh, easier said than done - i just gave mine a once over and the gap at the end of the plastic sleeve is pretty small at best. as far as i can tell mine are kosher, but this article is right, the design doesn't make it easy to spot any potential damage so who knows...

i think swaging is most popular with cams designs as opposed to brazing but either way they have that connection area, even the bd's have a stress point at the head there, no way around it (well some engineer could probably figure it out). i have some flexcams that have a black plastic cover to the cable but i can see in the gap, and it also seems like the cable is pretty beefy, maybe mal can tell us what's used? curious

thats why I climb with Metolius. As far as I know they have the best rated strength to weight ratio. I almost bought a set of RE robots (or whatever they are called), they are so friggen cheap! now I know why!

yeah, this is the bit that doesn't quite make sense to me - maybe prior to this accident this part of the cam wasn't identified as a weak point, but if the cable needs to be strong enough to hold a truck and it also needs to flex, why not make it thicker than is currently the case? or would that bugger up the functionality?